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Will Allen has always wanted to provide healthy foods for people in Milwaukee. Now he wants to hire 150 unemployed low-income people to meet the demand.

To do so will cost money, but the African-American Male Unemployment Task force took a step in the right direction recently when it approved a $425,000 proposal to put Allen's plan one step closer to reality.

The proposal, which would create urban farms, now goes before the full Common Council. It should be approved because it not only provides healthy foods to low-income people who need them, but it also helps put people to work.

Allen, the chief executive officer of Growing Power Inc., presented the proposal in January. At the time, he said he would match a city community development block grant of $425,000 to get the project started.

Allen told Journal Sentinel reporter Tom Tolan recently that it may take about three times that amount to fully fund the project. Mayor Tom Barrett told the Editorial Board that he is willing to listen to Allen.

Allen's Growing Power concept is well-respected throughout the country. He has been a guest of President Barack Obama at the White House to discuss his ideas, and he has plans to grow a vertical garden on the city's northwest side. In 2008, he won a prestigious MacArthur genius fellowship.

Addressing the multitude of problems that face Milwaukee's poor will take the same kind of innovation.

The task force approval comes on the heels of more bleak unemployment news that says job seekers who have been out of work for more than a year are having even a harder time finding work. This is especially bad news for African-Americans, who make up 12% of the workforce but account for 20% of the unemployed.

Allen is passionate about getting people to eat right and exercise. He has a big job ahead of him here, because Wisconsin is ranked as the most overweight state for African-Americans.

Allen believes that by growing food, he can grow minds and eventually grow a community devoted to healthy eating. We hope he's right. In any case, Allen deserves credit for taking on the issue of unemployment in an innovative way.

Now it's up to city leaders to provide him with the tools he needs to help his proposal grow.

Would you support an urban farm program to create jobs for unemployed black men? E-mail your opinion to jsedit@journalsentinel.com to be considered for publication as a letter to the editor? Please see letters guidelines.